THE annual Poppy Appeal is not just about helping ex-servicemen from the First and Second World Wars. Neither is just about helping those from the Falklands, the Gulf, Bosnia or Afghanistan.

It is about helping the servicemen and women who will be injured or suffer in the conflicts still to come.

That was the poignant message delivered by Flt Lt John Nichol, the former RAF Tornado navigator, to an audience of more than 150 guests at a lunch in Hollingbourne, near Maidstone to mark the launch of this year's Poppy Appeal.

The one-time navigator provided Saddam Hussein with one of his few moments of "triumph" during the Gulf War and left the West with one its most disturbing images of the conflict, when he and his pilot, John Peters, were paraded by the Iraqis on world television, submissive and beaten, having been shot down and captured.

In his speech, Flt Lt Nichol shrugged off his experiences. He said: "Once we had been shot down there was nothing else we could do. All decisions had been taken away from us.

"My friends in the squadron had a much harder time than I did, because they had to go on flying day after day, never knowing when they might be killed."

Flt Lt Nichol has left the RAF after 15 years' service and has used his experiences in a new career giving motivational talks to management conferences. But he retains a deep interest in the military and has written several books on different aspects of war.

He is president of the Gulf Veterans' Branch of the Royal British Legion and patron of the British Ex-Service Wheelchair Sports Association.